This one-shot was brought to you by LordHelen
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It was a completely dark day - more like pitch black - in the Dark Lands. The Sun had never shone on this realm, but it was still odd for it to be this black. Here, the land had no fertility, and there was hardly any show of life, but koopas still owned this 'eighth' world of the Mushroom Kingdom, which was mostly a separate territory by now. The whole world was covered by pure misery, despair, and starvation.
The room was dark, lit by black lamps alone. These lamps illuminated every corner of the room dimly, and this was more bad than good. In one corner, an enlarged board game sat, ready for action. In the middle of the board, there was a suspicious square mark, very large. The board game spaces seemed to be conveyer belts, though they weren't on. There were several odd, shower-like nozzles all over the board. In another corner a bed stood. It was black with a large, red hammer picture on the middle of the blanket. Next to the bed was a nightstand with another black lamp. Several books littered the table, including one with a bookmark in it called Tricks, traps, and TORTURE!
The rest of the room was also frightening. What looked like several bear traps covered the floor, making a small and disguised path to everywhere else in the room. Leaning on the walls were open coffins with enlarged spikes sticking out from each side. There were other torture devices and traps, some hanging from the ceiling, others in plain sight. Skeletons remained in some, even in a few bear traps. There was a large couch suspended in the air by durable chains. There sat a large koopa girl, looking down at her room - were it less deadly she'd be pacing. As it was, she made two of her fingers pace around like a little her. Her problem was the exact same thing as almost all koopas: the Mario Bros. She still remembered what Bowser had said.
"Flamela, what are you doing here? Great, I have a job for you."
"What?" Flamela asked, suspicious. Bowser held a squirming bag that gave out muffled, incoherent cries, as if the creature inside was gagged.
"The Mario Bros. will be here soon. I kidnapped Toadstool, only this time my plan can't fail! Kooky has even created a new robot, Bowserbot!" Bowser smiled at this new, slightly more creative name. Flamela guessed it beat "Bowser 2.0" or whatever it was.
"So?" Flamela demanded. She knew better than to be excited about this.
"Well, seeing as how you're a fire/hammer sis. in training, shouldn't you be involved in the fight?" Bowser asked. Flamela had frozen in horror. Her first fight, and it was against them. "I'll take that as a 'yes sir!' You see, Kooky is going to hold the key to your room. As long as Bowserbot doesn't fail, you'll be fine. You can hold the key to mine and Bowser Jr.'s room. It'll be a piece of cake. Kooky can't fail this time!" Bowser then offered a golden key to the frozen girl, who didn't move. Laughing, he tucked it in her hand and hefted the bag over his shoulder. "I'd be getting prepared, just in case, though."
Flamela was thinking evil, death-filled thoughts about her king. Her reddish-orange hair was tied back in a bouncy ponytail and her blue eyes were dead and lonely. "I'm going to die!" she cried out. A small, blue dragon on the ground blew flame in response. "No, Cocoa. You can't fight them!" Flamela chided her pet.
Hitting a red button on the arm of her couch, Flamela waited as the couch lowered itself to the ground. Flamela, taught by pain and chocolate - which she loved - expertly stepped onto the invisible path in the bear traps. Walking the winding path to her dragon, she drifted so deep into her miserable thoughts she barely caught herself before stepping on a bear trap. Sighing, she bent and picked up Cocoa.
"How am I supposed to beat them when I haven't even fought a goomba? I make a good shot with hammers and fire, but can I hit a moving target? I'm not even a Sledgehammer in the hammer bro. institution!" Flamela stared at the dragon in her arms. Cocoa snuggled her shoulder, looking sympathetic. "Well, I at least won't let you die." Flamela placed Cocoa on the ground in front of his small, doghouse-like home. It was small to her, but there were actually three stories in the puny building - magic, of course. She opened the door and pushed Cocoa into the house. Before he could turn around to scamper out, she slammed the door and produced a silver key, locking it shut. Cocoa whined.
"Sorry, Cocoa, but it's for your own good. Oh dear, look at the time! 3:30, precisely a week after Bowser kidnapped Peach! Mario will be killing Kooky now. I have to get in position!" Flamela maneuvered her way through the traps until she reached her bed. Flamela grabbed her book, Tricks, traps and TORTURE!, and returned to the invisible path. She quickly found her way to the board game and sat in the precise middle, right on the large square. "Now, I wait."
After a few minutes that seemed an eternity, Mario and Luigi entered the room, now completely black - the lights were off. "Come out, Bowser!" Mario called into the room.
"Yeah, we're gonna kill you anyways!" Luigi stepped forward and a bear trap clamped on his leg. "OWEE-HEE-HEE!"
"I'm sorry if you were expecting someone else, Mario and Green Guy," Flamela said, taunting Luigi.
"Who are you?" Mario asked, pulling his brother into the light of the door, which then swung shut at the exact moment the black lights turned on, one by one. Flamela stood on the game board still, smiling.
"Introducing Flamela Burniece Koopa! Hold the applause, thank you, thank you!" Flamela shouted. "Welcome to your darkest hour, your moment of torment! To my room, the Torture Room!"
"Okay… how do we fight if you're over there and there's no way to you?" Mario wondered.
"Oh, I guess you'll just have to be imaginative," Flamela said distractedly, purposely swinging the key to Bowser's room on her index finger.
Mario, not one for quitting easily, studied the floor.
"Mario, this is a waste of time. Why don't we just go get a tanooki suit or something and come back?" Luigi asked.
"She'll be gone by then," Mario accused in a carrying tone.
"Trust me, I'm not going anywhere. I wouldn't want to be absent to your execution!" Flamela called.
"What?" Luigi demanded.
"Think, Green Loser! I was implying you will die as soon as you find a way over here!" Flamela rolled her eyes and sat down, pulling out her book. "I'll be reading as you attempt to fight me. Trust me, I don't need sleep."
About an hour later Mario stepped onto the hidden path and started creeping towards Flamela, who hardly noticed as she was wrapped up in her book. Before they were halfway there, Flamela stood.
"Oh, drat. Now I'll have to make a whole new layout! Well, I'm ready." Flamela waited patiently for them to reach the board and step onto two spaces.
"You're done, Flamela!" Mario yelled, about to take a step off his space.
"Ah ah ah, bad plumber. Don't you know you're supposed to stay on your space when you play?" Flamela asked chidingly.
"Huh?" Mario asked. Flamela stomped her foot once and the square she stood on rose up about 30 feet.
"Time to play!" Flamela cackled, hitting a bright blue button on the panel that rose up in front of her. A cool, jumpy remix of the Koopa Bros. theme began playing and the spaces the Mario Bros. stood on began moving like the conveyer belts they were.
"Ack!" Luigi complained as a buzzsaw tried to snag his head off. Confetti canons and balloons filled with fire exploded all around and the Bros. sight was filled with confetti. It was dangerous. They were unable to see as several machines tried to decapitate them.
"Having fun?" Flamela demanded, smiling wickedly above the fray.
"Too chicken to join your own game?" Mario taunted as he dodged a cage that tried to trap him in the line of a blaster cannon.
"You won't trick me, plumber! I am Flamela!" Flamela hit a red button and everything stopped. The confusion cleared and the plumbers found themselves frozen by lasers. "See? I will be triumphant, and Lord Bowser will reward me!"
"What? That's it? You're doing this for a reward?" Mario seemed angered.
"Of course. Lord Bowser told me I must do it, so I must. I don't even know you. Doubt I'd like you more if I did, but…" Flamela smirked, hopping down the back of the pillar she stood on. She followed the hidden stairs down.
"What are you doing?" Luigi demanded, twisting around to see her.
"I am joining the game. First one to the finish wins!" Flamela announced, the lasers moving to allow the brothers to relax from their frozen stance. Flamela rolled the dice, smiling wide at the snake eyes. "YES!"
"What does it mean?" Luigi demanded, watching her run forward - four spaces - and hit the button on a shower nozzle. A red spray hit her face and she grew four times her size.
"It means I can go double as far, next turn! You Loser Bros. don't have a chance!" Flamela watched Mario fall down a pit, only to resurface two spaces ahead, and Luigi get shrunk by a blue spray.
"Luigi, you okay? This is getting hard," Mario called as Flamela bounded twelve squares away, hitting a button which sprayed her with something pink.
"No talking! It's my time!" Flamela called, worried they might find the one flaw in her board game. The nozzles, if their sprays were combined, it would warp a player to finish. It was something she often used to cheat. She hated losing. Mario got sprayed by something orange that would allow him to roll twice next turn and Luigi got sprayed by something red that made him grow as well.
The board was rather large and there were many, many spaces. It took forever for one of them to reach the finish, but it was Luigi who did so. He had the best luck with the sprays by continuing to get red and orange and purple, purple allowing him to jump five spaces before rolling.
"Do we win, now? Can we have the key?" Mario asked in a barely audible voice. He was winded after all that running.
"Are you kidding? The fun hasn't even begun," Flamela said, eyes glinting malevolently. She started to climb the tower again.
"Wait, what?" Luigi demanded, far better off than the exhausted Mario. "That's not fair!"
"I never said I was fair, plumber! I frequently say I'm beautiful and smart, but I never said anything about fair!" Flamela said tauntingly. She hit a glowing green button and several canons started firing at the brothers.
"MARIO! We have to get to her tower and destroy it!" Luigi yelled.
"HOW?" Mario bellowed as a fireball hit his leg. He gave a scream that resembled Luigi's when the bear trap got his leg.
Luigi saw that most of the canons homed. "I've got an idea!"
The two brothers started running towards the tower. Mario headed to the left and Luigi went right. The homing canons attempted to shoot the brothers, but they were too fast and the blasts hit the tower instead.
"What? NO! Stop it! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT-" Flamela's screamed denial was cut short by several internal explosions that blew the tower she stood on apart.
"Did we kill her?" Luigi wondered, looking around for the koopa. She fell from the ceiling where the explosion had sent her onto Luigi, who hit the ground at the impact.
"Luigi!" Mario pushed Flamela off his younger brother and helped him up. "Do you surrender, koopa?"
"I will never surrender. I will fight until the day I die," Flamela said, too weak to talk loudly or stand up, for that matter. Mario shrugged and relieved her of the key. She lived, though. They left her to die, but she lived.
Naturally, there was Hell to pay. Bowser found her at the most fault and besides putting her on probation he also didn't reward her, and she spent two weeks eating moldy bread and weak slush in a grimy dungeon filled with rats, bats and some other things Flamela didn't want to think about. But she lived through that, too.
And it was because she lived that, two weeks after her release from the dungeon you could stand outside her room and hear construction work inside. It was because she lived that, if you stayed up late enough you could hear her talking to Cocoa. And she would say, "Cocoa, when those Mario Bros. come back, I'll be ready for them! Just look, it's been completely remodeled! Next time, I'll win!"
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